The risk of there being too many app store type thing for mobile applications would always be in the back of my mind. Plus this is something for the community, this is about business, making money for the developer and the company as a whole.
While Apple have never maintained that the App Store was a primary focus for them (not matter who's breakdown of the revenue you read), others have jumped on the wide open band wagon of other app types. So Java, Brew and Blackberry apps are under heavy scrutiny as to how they can be made to good use.
There's been plenty of waves from Nokia about Ovi, due to open in the next few days if the rumour mill is anything to go by. Qualcomm sent out a press release today indicating the same thing regarding an app store, finally the Microsoft Marketplace will also be selling apps as well.
Brew developers have their own set of problems (very much like the way J2ME has it's own set of problems), very much a vendor lock in but Apple just seemed to do it better. Apple's selling point is the hardware, the apps are just a little icing on the cake, they just control the icing gun, where it goes and how much goes where.
My research over the last few days has just shown me that a lot of Java apps aren't that great, we missed a big trick there regardless of how many billion devices it can go on. When you start talking to end users they very rarely download any apps onto onto the said billion or so devices. So it all starts to make bleak reading.
No matter which way I looked at it, do my own app store for pure Java mobile apps, or write a decent app (why has no Twitter client on J2ME remotely embraced running it through SVG?, it would look great), at that point I gave up, jumped ship and started looking at iPhone/iPod development.
Shame, it's a great shame. I see the larger vendors possibly sinking an aweful lot of money that could be a lame duck.
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